


Before the Beginning and After the End

by sugarplumfairy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:22:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarplumfairy/pseuds/sugarplumfairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of SBURB brought a whole lot of questions with it. But the most prominent one was "What now?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Beginning and After the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CattaRegina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CattaRegina/gifts).



John Egbert woke up in his bedroom.

 

He was disoriented at first, wiping his eyes tiredly before putting on his glasses. He looked around at the posters plastered on his walls.

 

He heard a shout from downstairs, and wasn’t sure why it roused a wave of emotion in the pit of his stomach. He pulled off the covers and shuffled to the edge of the bed, running a hand through his jet-black, slept-in hair. He looked down, and didn’t recognize the clothes he was wearing. The soft, blue pants and yellow shoes weren’t like anything that he had ever had in his wardrobe. And this weird hood-thing…

 

He pulled it out, lifting his bottom to free the end. It was almost like…

 

...A windsock!

 

Everything came back to him in a flash- all of his adventures, the three years on the ship, the… the battle with Lord English. And then…

 

John leaped off the bed, bursting through the door. He flew down the stairs with a bit of a tailwind, and headed straight for the kitchen.

 

“Dad!” he yelled as he slammed the door open.

 

Dad looked up, puzzled, as John shot across the room to hug him with so much force that Dad had to grab the counter behind him for support. John buried his face in Dad’s shoulder, not noticing the tears running down his face.

 

-

 

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 11:33 --

 

TT: John.

TT: John, please answer.

TT: John!

EB: rose?

TT: John, is your dad there?

EB: yes! i’m so happy, he’s here, he’s baking it’s just like before we loaded the game.

TT: My mom is missing.

EB: what??

TT: I can’t find my mom anywhere. She’s not here, at all. I woke up this morning in my room, in my god tier suit, and only a hazy recollection of the events prior. As soon as I remembered what had happened, I went looking for her, but the house was empty. Everything else is here- all of the furniture, and her alcohol, and all of my things, but…

EB: rose, are you okay?

TT: John, what am I supposed to do?

EB: have you talked to dave yet?

TT: I tried contacting him, but he’s not responding. Lazy prick probably hasn’t even woken up yet.

EB: let me try

EB: brb

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] is now an idle chum! --

 

-

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 11:43 --

 

EB: dave

EB: dave!

EB: dave!!!!!!!!

EB: dave this is like the one time ever that i need you to answer i think rose is in trouble.

EB: her mom is missing! this is serious!

EB: dave if you ever get this you need to talk to one of us because there is some serious shit going down right now and we kind of need to hear your story okay.

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 11:57 --

 

-

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 11:58 --

 

EB: rose?

TT: Did he respond?

EB: no luck.

TT: I’m sorry. I must have overreacted earlier.

EB: no, rose, i totally understand. this is really serious.

TT: I just… I was really looking forward to being able to see her again, and… And, well… I didn’t.

EB: rose, i

EB: i’m not sure what to say.

EB: oh hold on one second jade is messaging me?

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] is now an idle chum! --

 

-

 

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 12:01 --

 

GG: john??

EB: jade have you talked to dave?

GG: that’s what i need to talk to you about!!

GG: i’m chatting with him right now and his bro is gone!!!

EB: oh no!

EB: i was just talking to rose and her mom is missing too.

EB: we’ve been trying to get a hold of dave all morning.

GG: we all need to meet somewhere… i still have my god tier powers, do you??

EB: yeah.

EB: i can pick up rose and dave and we can meet on your… island.

GG: heh heh! :)

GG: i mean… :(

GG: i don’t think it’s right to smile right now…

EB: yeah.

EB: i hope we can figure things out.

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 12:10 --

 

-

 

“There’s one other thing that I forgot to mention…”

 

“Hm?” Everyone turned to Jade, who was tying her thick, dark hair into a loose bun. There sure was a lot of it, from the three years on the ship.

 

“Bec’s gone.” She bit her lip. “I thought he might be here, since my ears and tail are gone, but I’ve searched all over the island. I’ve called him, but he hasn’t shown up once.”

 

John placed his hand on her shoulder. “Are you gonna be okay?”

 

Jade rubbed her arm. “I think so. I mean, I’m old enough that I don’t need him anymore, but… I just miss him, y’know?”

 

“I know.” Dave lifted his shades slightly to rub his eyes underneath them. “I was so excited to see Bro again when I woke up. But… it was like he was never even there. And… and all I can think about is the fact that I never got to say bye to him.”

 

They sat in silence for a while, Dave’s words reverberating in their heads.

 

“What now?”

 

The question came from Rose, who had been oddly quiet throughout the entire exchange.

 

John sighed. “I don’t know. Start over? Try to live a normal life?”

 

“John,” Jade said quietly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not exactly normal.”

 

Another silence fell over the group. John opened his mouth to speak, but before he could a large explosion rocked the room. Rose grabbed her glass before it could tip over as Dave stood up, grabbing his katana from the floor.

 

“What was that?”

 

John, Rose, and Dave rushed out of the house to find a pillar of smoke rising from the middle of the jungle. Jade came up behind them a few seconds later, the Girl’s Best Friend tucked under her arm.

 

“Why are you all standing here? Let’s go!!!”

 

Jade led the way through the thick jungle, hopping over familiar roots and ducking under well-known branches, moving toward the smoke rising into the sky. Eventually, the air began to grow thick with black smoke, some of the foliage on either side of their path burning. John coughed and attempted to wave away the air in front of him, screwing his eyes tight and consequently bumping into Jade, who had stopped at the edge of the crater that the smoke was coming from.

 

John removed his glasses and rubbed his stinging eyes, squinting down into the pit, where a number of dark shapes were gathered. He rubbed his glasses on his shirt and put them back on his face, and the shapes came into focus.

 

“Imps,” he breathed.

 

“And ogres, and basilisks,” Rose added, slipping the Thorns of Oglogoth out of her pocket.

 

“And liches, and giclopses,” Dave said, readjusting his grip on the katana.

 

Jade cocked the rifle in her hands and John summoned the Warhammer of Zillyhoo. He felt wind beneath him, and it swept him up, off his feet. He turned back to his friends, an exhilarated smile growing on his face.

 

“Let’s roll!”

 

John pushed out a gust of air, extinguishing most of the flames at the crater’s edge, before diving down into the crater, twirling the hammer with his wrist. The other three were close behind, wielding their own respective weapons. Jade, with her ranged weapon, attacked first.

 

The bullets from the Girl’s Best Friend tore through a number of imps, and they almost instantaneously burst into little grist piles. John launched the next attack, spinning around once and knocking a lich upside the head. The blow wasn’t enough to slay the beast, but Dave came up behind him quickly, shoving the katana into its abdomen. The lich showered them with grist, but the two didn’t have time to reap the rewards before a roar from behind alerted them to the presence of a titachnid.

 

John raised his hammer and prepared to strike, but a blast of white magic from the side pushed the beast away, and a shower of bullets from Jade was enough to make it explode. John floated there, surprised, until Rose’s “John, duck!” caused him to whirl out of the way of the massive fist of a giclops. John countered with an upstrike of his hammer, and a gust of air that caused it to stumble backwards. He then leaped down, and used his weight and momentum in a powerful pound of the hammer into the giclops’s abdomen.

 

The giclops burst open into a pile of grist, which was quickly scattered by a burst of light from the Thorns of Olgogoth. Rose flew through the grist shower, a pair of ogres in close pursuit. A lich lumbered into her path, and she lashed out with the Thorns, defeating the lich and shortly after whirling around to finish off the ogres on her tail.

 

Dave thrust his blade into a basilisk that was preparing to strike Rose, and it collapsed just before its intended attack hit her. Dave gave her a small two-fingered salute, and she returned the gesture, before flying up to continue the battle. Sensing something behind him, Dave lashed out with the katana, slicing an unsuspecting ogre down the middle. Another ogre came up behind the first, almost as if to avenge the death of its comrade, but Dave made quick work of it as well. He noticed a shadow growing over him, and turned around to see a giclops, rising to its full height. His eyebrows raised over his shades, his mouth falling into a dismayed frown at the massive enemy before him before a loud RATTA-TATTA-TAT from an overhead Jade caused the beast to fall, crushing a few imps beneath it. Dave took the opportunity to finish it off, leaping high into the air and impaling the giclops in the stomach.

 

Jade came flying down in front of him, mowing down a crowd of imps on the ground with her rifle. She touched down on the ground and aimed her rifle at the head of a titachnid that John was grappling with, and her fire managed to distract it long enough for John to deliver the fatal blow. “Jade! Behind you!” he called, and she whirled around, gun blazing, felling a basilisk that had been hoping to get the jump on her. Her hair whipped into her face with a powerful passing gust of air, which was followed by a giggling John Egbert.

 

“Come on, Jade! There’s only one left- and he’s a BIG one!” He twirled around, stretching his arms to demonstrate just how BIG he was talking.

 

Jade pushed off the ground, following John to the center of the crater. She looked down briefly to see that the field was covered in different kinds of grist, all in different sizes. She looked up again to see the BIG monster that John was talking about- an acheron, several times bigger than any of them, with arms the size of several tree trunks swiping at Dave and Rose, who were already attempting to attack it. Rose flew around its head, shooting beams of white magic at it while Dave swooped to hack at its legs. John dove in, swerving to avoid Rose’s magic blasts, and landed a blow to the side of its head with the Warhammer. He flipped once in the air with a war-whoop and used his momentum to pound the acheron in the stomach. Jade was close behind, wielding her rifle and firing into its body.

 

“Jade, Dave!” Rose shouted above the noise of the battle. “Try and keep the acheron’s mouth open!”

 

The two flew up and attempted to pry its mouth open, and did so with a good amount of effort.

 

“John, assist my magic blast with a gust of air!”

 

“What good will that do?!”

 

“If your wind cuts in front of Rose’s blast, it’ll eliminate air resistance, making her blast faster and the momentum will give it more power upon impact!!” Jade shouted from down by the acheron’s mouth.

 

Rose took John by the hand and flew high above the battle. She raised the Thorns above her head, and they began to glow white with energy. She nodded to John, who started to form a ball of wind between his hands, cradling it like a child. He shot it forward, and Rose’s magic followed its path.

 

Just as Jade had predicted, the two began to pick up speed, dancing around each other and making a clear beeline for the acheron’s mouth, where Jade and Dave were struggling to keep it open.

 

The pair of blasts impacted with a surprising amount of force, shooting straight into the monster. The acheron swayed for a moment, taken aback by the attack, before it exploded, raining grist down onto the crater.

 

John and Rose touched down onto the ground, where Jade and Dave were already waiting.

 

“Good work, everyone!!”

 

-

 

“If there are underlings here, do you think they’re landing other places on Earth?”

 

“How are they even getting here from the Medium?”

 

“They’re entering through meteors, just like the ones that took us to the Medium.”

 

“I-” John was cut off by his phone ringing. He picked it up. “Hello?”

 

His eyes widened, and he placed his hand over the receiver. “There are imps attacking my neighborhood!”

 

-

 

They were, indeed, just imps. But it answered a lot of questions. Underlings would continue to pour into Earth, and, as far as they knew, they were the only ones capable of handling them.

 

The secret of what had happened in the Medium was a secret no longer, and the four displaced teenagers did gain a new purpose- to protect the people of Earth from the Sburbian threat. They became neighborhood heroes, and then national heroes, and eventually international heroes. Their god tier powers and alchemized weapons from the years proved to be useful.

  
Together they fought krakens, acherons, imps, ogres. And they were happy.

**Author's Note:**

> *immense sigh*
> 
> Sorry. To be completely honest with you, I was a pinch-hitter for this so I was deprived of the usual amount of time for writing. I know the ending is rushed and abrupt, and I would have added more to it if I had the time. 
> 
> I was actually also working on another fic that is set post-endgame, so if you want some more of this universe you can contact me and I'd be happy to write you something else c:
> 
> ~Plum  
> (tumblr user asugarplumfairy)


End file.
